Tiger using 700Mb RAM

[dylan]

Is this normal?? I only have Safari and Mailk open and Safari is using 10% CPU as im typing... and 150MB RAM!!! This can't be right!i have 2 small apps open and i only have 50Mb free! I know os x uses alot of ram but this seems like a bit much.

Whats windowserve does it have anything to do with windows networking if so how can i get rid of it? its using 150Mb and 2% CPU

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Benjamin]

OS X will use as much as it can and allocate it to open application. I am actually surprised that you have as much as 50MB free of course ikd how much ram you have, anyway don't worry about it, thats normal. Also windowserve is basically the manager of the GUI.

 

[Laslo Panaflex]

870MB used right now, and all I have open is Safari and am I typing this response. I have 2.5gig of system memory, I think the more ram you have the more the OS uses. Not neccessarily a bad thing, unless your system is acting funny and running slow, I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[aussie_geek]

How long have you had your Mac on for? I have noticed the Ram usage increases the longer you have the system up.

I have found that by Repairing Permissions increases the amount of Ram available - not sure why..

aussie_geek

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

How many Dashboard Widgets are active...? Turn off those you don't need...

 

[CorvusCamenarum]

If you're concerned about it, try dumping the history and cache in Safari and quit when you're done. I've found that doing that tends to free up a goodly portion of RAM. Logging out and back in also tends to "reset" the RAM (for me anyway).

For what it's worth, I always sleep my machine, and have the following nearly always open:
Finder
Aduim
Safari
Mail
iTunes
Appleworks

I'm on an A rev. 17" iMac with 768MB of RAM, and according to MenuMeters, I rarely get up over 50% of total RAM in use.

 

[mrgreen4242]

Please take a screenshot of the Activity Monitor memory screen for us... I am guessing that you are seeing Inactive RAM, which is included in the used RAM category. This used to get me too until I found how OS X manages memory... the Inactive memory segment just keeps recently or commonly used files in memory until another program needs it or it is launched again.

 

[dylan]

Wow thanks for all the quick replies. So the inactive memory is just what os x has in reserve or what? I'm a recent switcher so i wasn't sure about it so thanks for clearing it up.

 

[kalisphoenix]

I switched from Linux... it's really weird for me to see any free RAM whatsoever. The general UNIX philosophy seems to be "what good does having a large amount of RAM do you if it's not used?"

 

[crazzyeddie]

Wow thanks for all the quick replies. So the inactive memory is just what os x has in reserve or what? I'm a recent switcher so i wasn't sure about it so thanks for clearing it up.

Basically, yes.